Pickle the Spy, or the Incognito of Prince Charles

Lang, Andrew, 1844-1912Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.4
Word count
490K words
Chapters
50

Tags

English Originals World History Historical ReappraisalSuspense ThrillerSocial ObservationPower GameIdentity MysterySpy MysteryComplex HumanityBehavioral AnalysisDocumentary NarrativeTurbulent Era

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Pickle the Spy; Or, the Incognito of Prince Charles by Andrew LangAuthor: Lang, Andrew, 1844-1912,Language: English, Class: DA: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Great Britain, Ireland, Central Europe, Release Date: Nov 1, 2004

Editor's review

This book is a popular history written by Andrew Lang from historical materials, centering on the identity of the spy "Pickle" and Prince Charles's activities under an assumed name; it combines narrative appeal with the interest of historical sources. It sets out the clandestine operations in eighteenth-century British politics and the aftermath of the Jacobite cause with clear threads, suitable for readers interested in British history, spy stories, and historical mysteries. As a public-domain ebook, the main barrier to reading is the English original and the historical background; readers may treat it as informal history reading, using the characters' movements to understand the tension and complexity of the political environment of the time; it can also serve as supplementary material for research on related events, though the author wrote early and his views and selection of materials bear the marks of his era.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Look up the basic background of Prince Charles and the Jacobites before entering the main text
  2. Mark aliases and the timeline as you read to keep the threads clear
  3. Treat the book as historical narrative rather than rigorous scholarship; check judgments against other sources
  4. If English reading is difficult, read chapter introductions and concluding paragraphs first, then the details

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a history? It is closer to a historical narrative, centering on the spy's identity and Prince Charles's activities under an assumed name, rather than a fictional novel. The author recounts characters' movements and the political background from sources; it can be read as popular history but should not be taken as the latest scholarly consensus.
What historical background should I know first? It is advisable to first learn about the political landscape of eighteenth-century Britain, the Jacobite restoration attempts, and Prince Charles's basic career. With this background, the names, aliases, and political entanglements in the book become easier to understand and the threads clearer.
Is the English original difficult to read? The book was written early, so its English is somewhat distant from current usage, but overall it is narrative historical writing. Readers can first read chapter openings and endings to grasp the gist, then read key passages closely; brief notes on unfamiliar names and places will aid understanding.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Lang, Andrew, 1844-1912 Author

Andrew Lang (1844–1912) was a British writer, poet and folklorist best known for compiling collections of fairy tales and myths. The library holds 77 of his works, including The Blue Fairy Book, The Red Fairy Book, The Yellow Fairy Book, The Violet Fairy Book and The Brown Fairy Book, as well as Tales of Troy and Greece and The Homeric Hymns. He gathered, edited and retold folk tales from Europe and around the world, naming the volumes by colour; his clear, fluent prose served both children and folklore scholarship. These collections preserved a wealth of oral material and shaped the modern English-speaking world's image of fairy tales, leaving a lasting influence on fairy-tale publishing and comparative story research. Public information on his life is limited, so this note focuses on his editorial and literary contributions.